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For the next month I enjoyed the presence of the two young pythons very much. They were strictly nocturnal (even though the big pythons are active during the day), and I often got out of bed after midnight to watch them explore the house. I fed them with only live food so they could become competent hunters: Lace with one month-old mice and Arrow with tiny skinks of the genus Lampropholis. I could not feed Arrow with new-born mice because none of the mice in this district would give birth; all were holding their pregnancies because of some environmental condition. Although the normal mouse gestation is about 19 days, my pregnant female had not given birth after two months. Even in the pet shops all the females were not dropping their babies; they were dying instead. So there was no food small enough for Arrow to eat except the little lizards. |
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 Both Lace and Arrow seem to prefer hunting from a vantage point wrapped around my arm, striking down at their moving food. Arrow provides a great deal of amusement as he learns rather awkwardly to manage the length of his own body while feeding, and to work out how to deal with a struggling lizard wrapping its tail around his face. Sometimes he grabs his own back in his mouth instead of the lizard and, realizing that something is wrong, he lets go of himself and sorts out his coils. When he is in hunting mode, he grips my fingers and wrists very tightly for a while before swallowing his prey. Since constrictors feel the pulse of their victims with their body coils, he is probably receiving confusing messages, his body telling him that something he's holding (me) is still alive, and yet the lizard has stopped struggling in his mouth. He always sorts it out eventually, though it can take a while before he relaxes his vice-grip on me! He holds onto my fingers so tightly that they swell up and go blue. It occurred to me that if an excited python only 30cm long and not much thicker than a pencil can constrict my fingers so dramatically, a larger one could suffocate a human if it was freaked out while around the person's neck. I'm glad to have woken to that possibility early! |
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 One night about 9pm Arrow emerged for a cruise, but he was very cold. I picked him up and he wrapped himself around my warmth, snuggling down under my clothes between my shoulder blades and wouldn't come out until he was toasty warm. Then he went exploring me for the next hour, checking up my nostrils, in my ears, in my eyes, and twisting himself through my hair. Eventually he sat coiled on top of my head with his head and neck draped down in an elegant wave over my forehead until I looked like Cleopatra wearing her asp. Just after he'd gone back to bed in his tree, Lace emerged quite dramatically through the crotch of my white satin lingerie - what a time to run out of film! As she cruised out, her belly was hanging free in the air, so I gently brought my hand up under her and supported it while she moved. She is still a wild python who has lived her own life for a year, and I wish to make a connection with her gently, respecting her independence. She accepted my touch until her head moved where she could see my hand under her. She then avoided me somewhat but her movements indicated she's getting used to me. 4 days later I put on some toast for breakfast, when suddenly there was Lace, shooting out of the hot griller! She was understandably upset and didn't want to be helped. I put my bare skin on the griller to test it: definitely an unpleasant shock for a fast-asleep python, but not hot enough to cause harm in a short exposure. Lace went up the wall in a panic and wove herself back and forth between two wall-mounted lights, looking quite upset. I slipped my hand under her belly and gently, without gripping her, brought loop after loop off the lights until she was completely in my hands. She held her head away from me, but rested on my palms and quietened down. Later when she was up her tree I offered her a one month-old mouse and she struck out immediately, holding and squeezing it until it died, then swallowing it hanging down from the branch so she could stretch all the kinks out of her neck. Then she went to bed. 12 days after Arrow came into my life, I saw no further sign of him. I suspect he went out through a tiny gap under my office door, following the scent trails of the little skinks where they enter and exit my house. I miss him. I hope he's OK out there in the "big world"! Meanwhile, living with Lace continued to provide charming, educational and often amusing experiences. She spent two days wedged between the glass panes of my bedroom window, thin enough after having taken 8 days to digest the mice she had arrived with, and had now excreted onto my dressing table. I can tell you that python poo smells unbelievably bad! One day I was cleaning up my bedroom bookshelf and did not seem to be able to pull the "Kama Sutra" out. Puzzled, I tugged harder and harder. Out it came with Lace on top. She had jammed herself between the book and the wood. She went off to find another book, Robin Hood this time. Later I had some mice for her so I pulled out the book and she plopped out upside-down into my lap. She struck for the mouse before she had even righted herself, and we had a comic time as she draped across my lap and dangled off my arm, dragging her mouse around trying to get a grip to swallow. She is still a bit disconcerted by physical contact with me, and when I moved suddenly, she dropped her third mouse, which she had killed. I waggled it in front of her and she struck again. We got a good routine going then: she coiled about my wrist like a bracelet and hung her head down, doing aerial strikes at the mice in the tub and hanging from my arm to eat them. She had 5 mice in one session and retired, full to bursting, to the bookcase for a week. When she emerged I took her up gently in my hands, and this time she was quite easy about being handled. She went exploring as Arrow had, up and down under my clothes, around my legs and waist, over my shoulders and in my hair, with her little tongue flicking constantly to smell me. Ticklish! Sometimes she hung out on top of the door frame through which I walked frequently while going about the house. Her little head would peep over the top and watch me passing beneath her. I would give her a tiny caress each time I passed, and she is now quite comfortable with touch. A week later, one month after she had arrived in my reality, she was gone. At first I thought she had gone into hibernation somewhere in the house, as it was getting cold and all the outside pythons were retiring for the winter. But when Spring came and the nights warmed, no sign of her did I see. She had probably found some hidden hole in the wall and gone out. How grateful I am to have experienced, for a brief time, these two young animals so different from humans, and yet so easy to relate to if approached with respect and gentleness. |
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 One day I found one of my mouse tubs lidless and the two mice were gone. Hmmm.....Then Bruce pointed and said: "There's the culprit!" and up on the rafters of the deck was coiled a very big, mosaic-patterned carpet snake about 3 metres long with two suspicious bulges in the middle. She was watching us. I pulled up some furniture and edged close to take a photo, but when the flash went off she struck out at the camera. Aaah. Pythons don't like flashes. I don't blame them. I won't do it again. Sorry Yri! (Her name is written on her back, like Ilva's). A week later it was apparent that I had been forgiven for my rudeness. Yri was out in a low tree next to the house shedding her skin. I pushed myself into the tree to watch. She was unconcerned by my presence. Her skin draped magnificently around the branches like a silk stocking, and she cruised around seeking notches and bumps to hook it onto and peel herself. I wanted the skin, but there was still about a foot to come off and I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. So I gripped the last little bit and gently undressed her tail. She had no objection at all, poised calmly a few inches above my head like a queen on her throne. The skin is very impressive hanging on my bedroom wall, and reminds me of her. I have since seen her crossing the road, coming home from the neighbouring community. I saw Ilva in the garden on a warm, sunny May morning. Curious to see if she would remember me, I cupped my hand over her back and lowered it until it touched. She did not flinch, as she would have for an unfamiliar touch. Nice to see you, Ilva! For the rest of the winter I did not see any of the carpet snakes. It was not until early September that they began to reappear. I have seen altogether 4 new ones in my garden this Spring. One I named Yoin for the letters on her tail; she is about the same size as Ilva, and for some time after we met she watched me shyly but curiously from a hidey hole on a rock while I gardened. Another one Ilva's size had a row of spots all down his back and no letters or symbols, so I just called him Spotty. In November I met Ilva in my other garden shed, having a good look around for a nesting place. She was not concerned by my presence. I offered her a big garden pot up above the floor, lined with grass and towelling but she declined. I hope she has found herself a nest site safe from floods and marauding red-bellied blacks this time! |
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 Two of the new pythons in my territory were enormous males who held their ground when I approached, probably because they were looking for mates and did not want to be distracted. One, whose name is Sindiu, put his head up and hissed loudly at me to warn me of his presence and claim his space, so I kept my distance. The other one was coiled up in a huge pile resting. When I went nearer to look at him, he slowly unravelled and came boldly towards me until he was very close, sniffing me and then going back into his coils to doze on the open ground right in front of me. I met him again a few weeks later in the same place looking a bit seedy. In fact, at first I thought he was dead. I cautiously touched him and there was no response. I saw that his eyes were milky. I touched him again and he budged slightly. I stroked him and he moved around towards me. I realized then he was feeling a bit down because he was about to shed his skin. Often the pythons are very cranky at this time and dangerous to approach, but this one, Ny, was quite docile. Somehow he let me know that he was very thirsty (python telepathy?) and I found myself rushing into the house to get him a bowl of fresh rainwater. I put it down in front of his nose and he drank and drank and drank. He spent a week hanging out curled up on top of my hot water system and I went to see him each day, give him a little pat and make sure his water dish was full. I was hoping to be there when he shed his skin, but he must have gone for a cruise and done it somewhere that I could not find. |
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 One day I was visiting Bruce on the other side of the community, and saw a fresh-looking python nearby. I watched him for a while, and called Bruce over to see. Bruce recognized the snake and had named him "Tal" because he, too, had his name on his back. I noticed a big tick on his side and kept my eye on him while Bruce went to get the tick tweezers and garden gloves. Bruce held Tal's head down for a moment while I quickly twisted the tick out, and it was all over before Tal really figured out what was happening. He slid off slowly into the garden relieved of his parasite. |